‘I’m sure Lieutenant Burton will be able to let you have a few more details,’ Decker said, with mock innocence, and Lorraine flushed scarlet. ‘Remember to ask him when he’s scrambling eggs for you — I mean, next time he calls.’
‘Did he call?’ Lorraine asked, giving up the pretence that her association with Burton was purely professional.
‘Nope, not yet. You want me to call him?’
Lorraine nodded, then changed her mind. ‘No, I’ll call him later. Anyway, two things. Feinstein figures that he bought the real thing from Nathan’s gallery, as he got it properly authenticated there, but what was packed and delivered were fakes. Cindy told me she thought Kendall and Harry were pulling something like that, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t believe her.’ Lorraine shook her head. ‘Poor kid. Nobody took her seriously her whole life.’
‘It’s not your fault she died,’ Decker said gently. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it.’
‘Yeah, I know — part of the job,’ Lorraine said with a wintry smile. ‘But she told me she’d found out that some of the art at the house was fake too. Some Chinese porcelain she thought was antique was apparently knocked out by some company called Classic Reproductions. Check them out for a start.’ She finished her sandwich as Decker made notes of what she had said.
‘I also think we need to trace a guy who worked for Kendall Nathan, a sort of gofer who brought the paintings round and hung them for Feinstein,’ she continued. ‘He’s a young kid — Feinstein couldn’t recall his name, but I remember seeing someone when I was at the gallery so chase him up too.’
‘Will do,’ Decker said, making another note.
‘These are pretty spectacular pieces that have gone missing, so we contact galleries in the US and in Europe and all the big art auction houses. They’re all signed works by well-known modern painters, and all had price tags from three hundred thousand dollars to over two million. Poor old Feinstein really got stung.’
‘I’ll make some enquiries in London,’ Decker said, writing furiously. ‘I think they have a register of hot art works you can have searched.’ He was going to enjoy doing the legwork on this case, he reckoned, schmoozing through galleries, and looking up art-world friends.
Lorraine dug into her briefcase and brought out some loose pages. ‘These are the names of the people Kendall employed. Feinstein paid the wages so the list should be legit — just three people. He said they were hired to remodel frames, do repairs and so on, but they might also have been painting the fakes, so check them out. There’s also a list of regular buyers — get each of them to give you the name of their art adviser. It may mean a lot of people have been stung.’
Decker nodded, excited.
‘Clever bastards,’ Lorraine mused, leaning forward. ‘You can see by the list — all movie people. They rarely sold to a dealer or old money, because they’d recognize a fake so fast. Most of the people they sold to were just rich trash and wouldn’t know if they’d bought a Lichtenstein or a fried egg. They hung up what they’d bought, put up the gold plaque to say what it was, while the original stayed with Nathan’s gallery. He and Kendall were pulling the scam together.’
‘And a very lucrative one,’ Decker remarked.
Lorraine nodded. She frowned, and leaned back in her chair. ‘You know... everything Cindy Nathan said is starting to make sense. I mean about the high-tech security at Nathan’s — I’d say he kept the originals on his own walls.’ Lorraine leafed through the pile of pages of information from Feinstein. ‘There’s also sculpture, ceramics, and some statues that were worth over a million dollars.’
Decker waited, pen poised, as Lorraine thumbed through the pages. ‘According to Cindy, Nathan hadn’t paid the insurance for the contents at the house for quite a while. Why do you think that was?’
‘It’s certainly a weird thing to do,’ Decker said meditatively. ‘Particularly since he wasn’t lax about security.’
‘That’s what I thought. He was paranoid about it, monitored every phone call, every visitor,’ Lorraine said. ‘Supposing what he was worried about wasn’t the paintings being ripped off out of the house, but certain people getting into it — like the people who thought they had the same painting hanging in the guest bath at home? I bet he was careful never to sell to anyone too close to his own social circle.’
‘That’s certainly one explanation,’ Decker said. ‘But what about Kendall getting in and trashing the stuff?’
‘I’ve been trying to figure that one out since the housekeepers told me about it. The only thing I can think is that she discovered then that those paintings weren’t the ones she and Nathan had bought.’
‘What do you mean — he’d sold them again?’ Decker interjected.
Wouldn’t surprise me. I reckon Nathan got two sets of fakes painted. Then he switched the originals again to cut Kendall out.’
‘He was doing a double whammy?’
‘Right. And Kendall found out when she went to the house the night Cindy Nathan killed herself.’
‘But why the hell would she set light to the gallery?’ Decker asked. ‘That was her own stock — she must have known that was genuine, at least.’
‘She’s going to have lost a fucking fortune on the scam — I’d say she torched it for the insurance. Which is why Feinstein wants me to look for secret banks accounts. If Nathan sold half of those paintings he’s got to have millions stashed somewhere.’
‘I’ll start calling round and see if any of them have turned up.’ Decker dangled the last piece of bresaola above his mouth and finished it with an elegant snap.
‘Let me tell you the second thing first,’ Lorraine said. ‘Feinstein told me the exact terms of Harry Nathan’s will.’ And she explained how Sonja Nathan now stood to inherit not only Cindy’s share of Harry Nathan’s estate, but also Kendall’s.
‘Just so long as she lives another...’ Decker glanced at the calendar ‘...four days. East Hampton next stop, right?’
‘Yes, get me another flight. I doubt if Sonja has anything to do with it as she’s been out of the picture a long time...’ She smiled at the pun. ‘But I’d like to talk to her, and besides, Mr Feinstein is paying us top dollar, so we can afford it. All fraud cases take a long time to check out too, so we don’t take on anything else — well, not for a while.’
Decker rubbed two fingers together. ‘Do I get a rise?’
Lorraine shooed him with her hand. ‘Oh, get out of here. But if you come up with something, yes, we’ll split if fifty-fifty because I’ll need you to do a lot of legwork.’
‘Thank you.’ He bowed out, eager to make a start.
Lorraine glanced at her phone, then checked the time. It was after two, and Jake had not returned her call. Suddenly, she felt the depression descend. It was odd, she thought, she’d got a new and interesting investigation, but a date for the movies was more important.
She spent the rest of the afternoon sifting through Feinstein’s papers. When it got to four o’clock and Jake still hadn’t called, she rang and cancelled her hair appointment. Much as she wanted to, she couldn’t pick up the phone to Jake himself, and hard as she tried to concentrate on work, she kept thinking about him until she had convinced herself he would never call again.
It was almost six when Decker returned. ‘So far none of the well-known galleries have seen any of the paintings listed, and none have been sold recently at auction. Next I’ll try England, the art-loss register, and then the rest of Europe — and you’ve missed your hairdresser.’
Lorraine attempted nonchalance. ‘This is more important. Now get out, leave me alone.’